I always figured I was a moderate... a middle of the road type guy. My first political campaign was Barry Goldwater's... then I joined the Navy and saw some of the world. I figure I'm still a moderate... I'm pretty sure you people to either side of me are nuts.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

There was a moment... but it passed

I allowed myself a moment of optimism at the end of last month. It passed, of course, as moments do; but for that moment I could conceive of politicians acting according to their conscience and in the best interests of their constituents... their voter constituents.It came to me in that moment that Congress might step up and reassert the primacy of the people over a corrupt administration with no political future and bills to pay to their multi-national corporate backers. At 58, I can still dream. Instead I saw both California Senators... Democrats, by the way... vote to permanently reauthorize the "Patriot" Act. Instead I saw the entire Congress distancing itself as far as possible from actually censuring the President for authorizing the NSA's domestic spying program.How high up the ladder in British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, or Halliburton does a person have to be to catch a break from these people?And the public? Have you ever watched a bad horror movie and wondered why the guy just stood there and let the vampires bleed him dry? That'd be us.We absorb the information that the President has decided to ignore the formality of a retroactive warrant to wiretap in clear violation of a law he pressed for, and eventually we convince ourselves that it's really okay because the guy... who has lied to us how many times before... says "trust me, I'm only doing it to suspected terrorists."Okay, people, once again, one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. A lawbreaker telling you that he thought the other guy was a lawbreaker too does not make either of them any more or less of a lawbreaker.If you haven't already done so, pop over to PureLand and read his post on macroeconomics.

4 Comments:

Thank you for the link for macro economics. This is another issue over which I have felt considerable alarm from soon after our current leaders took over their irresponsible governing of this nation. Am so glad to have this link.

Have missed your posts, but always check periodically to see if there is a new one. Would rather have infrequent ones, but thoughtful like yours, than daily ones, whatever your reasons may be for not posting.

The rest is really in response to ronni: Conservatives have always had the money and power to be patient. When everybody has gone home and stopped paying attention to the issues, that's when they pounce. I know developers whose unpopular projects have been blocked who will keep a staffer at county board meetings until people stop showing up and paying attention and they'll suddenly have a proposal they want rammed through and because the developers are campaign donors and because there's nobody to object at the meeting, an unpopular project will finally get approved. The smart groups that oppose the unpopular projects have a volunteer tag team that keeps tabs on what's happening at the meetings. It's a small price to pay for people to have some control over their lives.

Voters have tools and censure is one of them even if it doesn't seem like it. The world notices. And the inevitability of politics suddenly doesn't look so inevitable after a censure.

About Me

I'm of the Class of '65, but I seem to have missed most of the fun of that... largely due to the needs of the Navy and the United States of America. Now I try to see if I can make sense of what you people are doing, and how I might contribute where appropriate. Views expressed herein are solely mine and are seldom shared by anyone.

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You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.